


Bite Back

by Labradoodles_and_Muffins



Series: A Dancer, a Liar, and a Murderer (are all the same) [11]
Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Moderate depictions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 07:10:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/936880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Labradoodles_and_Muffins/pseuds/Labradoodles_and_Muffins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blades are for hunting, for taking down dinner and skinning it afterwards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bite Back

Metal through skin, cuts so well. It’s not the first time she’s killed with a blade, not even the first time she’s killed a hume with a blade but it is the first time she went into a fight against a hume with the intention of using one. Blades are for hunting, for taking down dinner and skinning it afterwards. Blades are for the Imperial whose voice she’ll never forget because she didn’t cut his throat right and he could still talk as he choked on his own blood.

She’s shaken and panting but notes, oddly calm, that she doesn’t so much as flinch as she removes the knife from his belly with a wet ‘shlick’. Beyond the rushing in her ears she can hear talking, laughter, glasses clinking. A man stabbed on the floor of a tavern is ordinary for Balfonheim and she appreciates that so much more now. 

The knife is a comfortable weight in her hand, balanced perfectly. She remembers trying to learn the bow and how it felt like a stranger that didn’t like her much. This is different. The knife likes her and she likes it too.

A hand on her shoulder and she jerks around, startled. One of the barmaids, with eyes that have seen so very much and can tell she’s new to this, asks her if she’s okay. She looks at the man again, remembers his greasy palms trying to sneak into her pants, and thinks that he doesn’t look as scary with his intestines showing. She thinks that he looks like every other dead man on the path she’s walking and she smiles. Nods to the nice barmaid and merely asks her if there’s a fire around. 

The barmaid points her out back where there’s a bonfire, some holiday going on and wasn’t that lucky? She drags the body out and throws it onto the fire before leaving. People are paying attention now, watching, calculating. The slight blonde leaves the tavern with a blood-stained knife in her belt, hands that don’t shake and the new respect of a handful of the most dangerous people she’s ever met.

The barmaid sighs and goes back to work. She’s seen this port eat a hundred good kids alive and now, she thinks, it’s claimed another. Still, it’s strange to see a girl like that with a knife in her hand rather than a dick in a hole. She thinks that, maybe, this time the kid will bite back.


End file.
